Codependent No More Workbook (16 page)

Before you close this lesson, put behaviors from Steps Four and Five in your tool kit. Make this the beginning of stopping your obsessive focus on others and the start of self-awareness. Of all the emotions, guilt is the worst. As you go through the days, months, and years to come, you will make mistakes. Things will come up that you’ll feel guilty about—sometimes so guilty you’ll feel paralyzed, like you can never hold your head up high again. I know people who’ve felt that way. I’ve felt that way too. When it’s necessary, look at what you’ve done wrong, your defects, or behaviors that create guilt. Then pick up the phone or meet with a friend, and tell somebody else what you’ve done.

You’ve done a great job, you’ve shown commitment to the program, and, most of all, you’ve shown commitment to loving and taking care of yourself. There are promises attached to doing this work, benefits you’ll soon see. Now, as discussed earlier, go home, pick up the workbook, and go directly to Lesson Six. You may feel tired, disoriented, emotionally drained. But you can do the next lesson anyway. You’ll get the strength you need. You’re about to renew your connection to yourself, your Higher Power, and others in a new way. You’ll look back at this someday and say it’s the most worthwhile work you’ve ever done. I hope you feel as good about yourself as I do. I know how hard it is. I don’t know your name—we may or may not meet someday. But we’re in this fellowship together, and I’m extremely proud of you.

“…God has exciting,
interesting things in store for each of us.

I believe there is an enjoyable,
worthwhile purpose—besides taking care of people and
being an appendage to someone—-for each of us.”

—Codependent No More

Suggested reading: chapter 10, “Live Your Own Life”

STEP SIX: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

STEP SEVEN: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

   —from the TWELVE STEPS OF CO-DEPENDENTS ANONYMOUS

S
teps Six and Seven are my favorite. They’re magical. They are the keys that unlock our initial transformation. The first time we work the Steps, we will experience the rewards of our efforts. Later, they are every bit as magical when we use them as daily tools for just about anything we can’t handle, which can often mean just about everything that happens to and in us, and the things we feel.

If we’ve been given a magical wand, these two Steps—used together exactly as they read—are it. They’re the Steps that we climb that take us from who we’ve been to who we’re going to become.

If you look at the action we are required to take, these Steps call for the easiest work on our part:
were entirely ready
and
humbly asked.
It can’t be more simple than that. Yet many people in Twelve Step programs report having a common fear.
If I ask God to take away my shortcomings—and God does—there won’t be anything left. I’ll disappear.

That belief is a trick we play on ourselves, our way of resisting change and transformation. “We”—the person we recognize as “our real self”—isn’t going anywhere. You’re not going to disappear. It’s closer to how a sculptor works when he’s sculpting an image of a person. He starts with a block of clay. Then he carefully removes everything that isn’t needed. What the sculptor is left with is the most necessary substance to form his creation.

Be not afraid. What you’ll have after working these Steps—in the days, months, and years to follow—will be more like the real you than you’ve ever been before.
If you have some fears about taking these two Steps, stand back a little. Take a realistic look at the process you’ve been experiencing. Nothing that you’ve been asked to do will harm or diminish you. The codependency is what took your soul. It’s where you lost yourself. By doing these two Steps immediately after taking your Fifth Step, you’ll begin the discovery process of learning who you are.

The sweetest, most calming part of these Steps—and you’ll see it if you read them closely—is that although we call recovery
self-help,
absolutely nothing in these two Steps says anything about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, using will or force to change, or even using the concept we’ve come to call
self-help.
These two Steps could not make it clearer that we don’t change ourselves. Our Higher Power changes us. What a relief to people caught in addictions, or compulsive behavior patterns. All we do is become entirely ready to let go of the beliefs, emotions, and behaviors that we’re calling
defects of character.
When it comes to codependency, we’re talking particularly about the survival behaviors we relied on to help us feel safe.

But remember, those survival behaviors, such as control, are illusions. They don’t protect us. They turn on us and make us feel crazy. The tricky part is that we may have convinced ourselves we need them. For instance, we may believe that if we stay resentful or angry at someone, we don’t have to worry about letting that person in, or letting that person hurt us. If we let go of our anger or bitterness and let the love flow through us, what will keep us from getting back in a relationship we know isn’t good for us again?

The answer is, we’ll learn new behaviors; we’re about to begin “college.” In this particular situation, because we love ourselves, we’ll set appropriate boundaries. We may have to go through a course similar to a college class. The difference is, the school is our life. As I wrote earlier in this workbook, just about anyone can become a teacher for setting boundaries—even the person who’s making us crazy or not treating us respectfully. Maybe it’s that person we obsessed about for years. He or she gave us just enough to keep us hooked in, but not enough to have a fulfilling relationship. Then finally we crossed the threshold, got into a relationship with the person, and discovered we didn’t want to be with him or her after all. We got tricked into obsessing about and wanting someone because it was something we couldn’t have. We got so busy obsessing about how the other person felt about us that we didn’t take time to see how we felt about him or her—or if we really enjoyed being with that person.

That’s one of the greatest dangers of obsession. It can be a red herring, a distraction from looking at situations realistically and seeing the situation clearly. All we see when we’re obsessed is that we want something or someone we don’t have.

I am not saying it’s wrong to have goals or to pursue what we want. I’m not advocating that tired-out theory
Be careful what you ask for because you might get it.
Ask for the best in your life. If you honestly and thoroughly work these Steps, that’s what you’ll get.

Again, you’ll be called on to trust your Higher Power, the God of your understanding. God is the one who’ll be changing you. You can relax into your life and into the arms of your Higher Power.

Following your Fifth Step, find a quiet, serene place where you can be by yourself. Now, I’m basing how to work these Steps on Alcoholics Anonymous, the original version and suggested way of working these steps. This isn’t my own
creation. As suggested in the Big Book, get down on your knees. If that isn’t physically possible, you can always get down on your knees in spirit.